Marriage In Heaven?

[prose]

I think about it this way...

Marriage can not be defined as such in heaven. As it exists here, it does not exist there. Therefor the word is not right. What we create here simply does not exist there.

BUT

We are eternal souls that maintain our personality, so it would make no sense if, as soon as we die, all of our relationships fall away. So, I think we will have a... more familiar relationship with our earthly family and friends simply because we know them here on earth.

But we will be so full of love for everyone, that the marriage itself will not be needed.

Until death do us part.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Gregoriana of Nyssa' post='1895374' date='Jun 18 2009, 02:21 PM']This is one teaching I've heard but don't understand, because Christ specifically said that marriages do not exist in Heaven. It also doesn't make sense because [i]some[/i] marriages, if they still existed beyond death, would be Hell, not Heaven. [/quote]
Christ says that there is ". . . neither marrying nor giving in marriage," which does not mean that those married on earth will no longer be with each other eternally, nor will their love die, since it was -- by means of the sacrament of crowning -- made a true participation in Christ's eternal love which He has for the Church. I think what Fr. Meyendorff is saying simply means that heaven does not destroy our familial bonds; rather, it strengthens and purifies them as our existence stretches into the infinity of God's being.

Edited June 18, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='StColette' post='1895380' date='Jun 18 2009, 02:24 PM']So, does that mean a widow or widower in the Eastern Orthodox Churches cannot remarry?[/quote]
No, they are permitted to remarry.

[StColette]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1895417' date='Jun 18 2009, 05:37 PM']No, they are permitted to remarry.[/quote]

but if they consider marriage to be eternal how do they allow remarriage?